City’s DVLA staff will join colleagues in office walk out

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Staff at the closure threatened Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) offices in Preston will join colleagues in a walk out on Friday.

The two-hour strike will involve 1,200 staff in the DVLA’s 39 local and enforcement offices that the government plans to close, and will kickstart a month of rolling strikes among the Public and Commercial Services union’s 8,000 Department for Transport members.

The unions says as well as putting jobs at risk, the DVLA closures would wipe out the “high quality face-to-face services these offices provide to the public and motor traders” whose often complex enquiries could not be handled by telephone or online.

The DVLA strike, from 3pm, will be followed by a two-hour strike by driving examiners on Friday, June 8 and a week-long series of short walkouts in the Maritime and Coastguard Agency against plans to close eight of the UK’s 18 coastguard stations and cut more than 140 jobs.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “With unemployment high and communities suffering as a result of the government’s cuts, ministers should be providing all the help they can to local economies that are crying out for support and investment.